The grandfather clock pulses the quiet mahogany floor opposite my couch, waking me from a perfect moment. Layla is there, chatting with Michael and petting her French bulldog. It is the end of a long day. I crane my neck back, gold beams etching through the windows. The harvest goes well. Home is well, and I am home.

My eyes open and bleed gold, quiet light into me as I feel the draft from the window, a fresh breath of autumn wind and old wood—and I remember we have a guest, but Layla stops me from getting more decaf. I'll get it, it's OK. Hold Whiskers for me?

How's the nursing home? Michael asks, barely glancing up from tuning his Chechen.

Chaotic, I say once more, but worth it.

Good! Michael says.

There is a message in my inbox I do not mention. I do not know what holds me back.

Layla grinds the beans in the kitchen. Michael asks if the nursing home is a permanent gig. I think about dinner. I think about many things to avoid what lies underneath.

When Michael asks about my future, I see someone else in his eyes. I hear his voice.

I shunt it away, shaking my head. Can we talk about something else?

Sure, Michael says. Sorry.

Layla puts down a tray of cortados on the coffee table. I lean forward and take mine. She makes it the way I like it so I will drink it. She makes it so she can share it with us. She makes it to use the huge bag of beans she bought for twenty credits at the department store. It is her favorite hobby. It is my favorite drink, not because of the taste, but because she makes it with such meticulous care and love; it makes our night after we each work long shifts, and have something to come home to together.

Michael practices on his Chechen, strumming perfect bars at a gentle rhythm. It is hard to believe he is practicing.

I have everything I need here, everything I want, everyone I love—

Everyone who remains.

The alliance was more than just to mutual benefit. To us soldiers, it was a vow, because to fight together is to promise to die together, or die for one another. We clones knew that better than anyone; after a century of peace, after a galaxy that barely knew what it meant to fight together, we reforged the ancient hold of brotherhood.

It wasn't an easy ask for us to trust our new allies. It was a political decision to parley with the Unified Earth Government with military ramifications. At the beginning, it was just talking. Then it was a negotiation. Then there was a treaty. Before we knew it, we had new allies. The Grand Army of the Republic was integrating certain units with the United Nations Space Command—although it wasn't seamless. Concerns of putting veterans alongside one another were swept away by the necessity of experienced units well-versed in siege warfare from both Mygeeto and Anaxes to support regs who had been doing it for years.

As the fighting intensified on Anaxes between Trench's forces and the Allies, and as my team was deployed there to handle an increasingly worrying Separatist offensive alongside Cody and Rex; we heard more stories of ARC troopers reluctantly fighting alongside the same Helljumpers they'd been killing just days prior over an assembly. It was obvious they didn't trust each other. But, when we made our push for the assembly the Invulnerable, the UNSC obliged in several shaping operations on the periphery, priming us for victory. A thousand Marines died in combat against ten times as many droids. The Helljumpers, buying time for General Windu, posted up in an overrun firebase and held off an armored droid offensive with no intent to retreat. They expended the Separatist assault with thirty men and women still standing—and half a Mammoth.

They had bled with us. They had earned our trust. Still, plenty of us didn't see it that way.

For our team, however, that mission was over. We were reassigned to multiple operations over the course of a month across the Outer Rim. Our last mission of the war was supporting General Billaba and her contingent of clones in the liberation of Kaller. The Separatists had set up shop under command of General Kleeve, turning it into a major hardpoint under Grievous' overture of the Outer Rim.

It was the perfect siege: the hyperlanes were wide open to Kaller, and the Separatist forces were stretched thin in their attack. Reinforcements would be two to three days away. When the Allied battle group made it there, meeting Battle Group Kilo and Battle Group November by the third planet in the system, the Separatists were already overwhelmed. Six hundred UNSC ships had arrived at the Kaller system two days prior and swarmed the blockade with carriers, cruisers, and wolf packs, indulging them in a battle of attrition. They played smart, eliminating every advantage the Separatists could hold. While the Separatists blockaded the planet, the UNSC swallowed the system and intercepted all inbound and outbound traffic.

They also constructed a system of buoys that could detect incoming Separatist ships in hyperspace—early warning effective up to half an hour. They parked ten squadrons of heavy cruisers to fire in volleys synchronized by an onboard artificial intelligence while the Separatist reinforcements were still diverting power from hyperdrives to deflector shields. The UNSC forces wiped them out to a ship.

Most worryingly came the question of why they were committing so many resources to this fight—why one million soldiers? More than three times the forces were sent here than to Anaxes or Mygeeto, two planets of significantly greater strategic importance. I had the impression until now that the United Nations were a sort of misguided underdog—throwing their lot in with the Separatists under sweet promises from a soothsaying tyrant. But it seemed they were a sleeping giant. Aligned with the Republic, they produced six hundred new ships and graduated ten thousand officers from their naval academies in two months.

Echo had the same question.

"Perhaps it is a show of force," Tech said, as he tinkered with his software. "They may give the appearance that they are taking the war more seriously, and committed to fighting alongside us as partners. They may want to give the Republic the impression that they are not to be trifled with."

Crosshair, without interrupting his weapon maintenance routine, chimed in:

"Maybe they just hate him," he said.

"Who?" Echo asked.

"Grievous," Crosshair said.

Echo grunted, leaning back in his bunk. "They should get in line."

I hesitated in thought. "Maybe Crosshair's right," I said. "I think they're riled up."

"Still," Tech said, "it cannot be as simple as an emotional response. You can find a lot said about Grievous' killing of an American aviator on the Solarite holonet-equivalent channels. But that is rhetoric and propaganda. According to their history—"

"Are you an expert on their history, now?" Echo asked.

"No," Tech said, looking up from his datapad. "I am simply—"

Interrupting us, an officer walked into our durasteel hut. The door slid shut behind him, sealing off a cool, autumnal draft. We stood at attention for him.

"Pack it up, boys," the officer said. "We've got another mission for you. Briefing in ten."

"What kind of mission, sir?" I asked.

"Another survey," the officer said.

Wrecker groaned, collapsing back into his makeshift seat—his equipment container.

The officer turned, seeming apologetic. "I know, I know, trooper."

"Sir," I said, turning to him. "No disrespect, but perhaps our skills are being wasted on these lower-intensity missions."

The officer hesitated. For regs, I knew him to be a fairly respectable man. During the brief campaign on Kaller, he always made sure we were fully stocked, and that the regs kept their distance, and not to demean us. He had seen a lot of action in his time, I could tell. He didn't disregard our concerns.

"I understand," he said to me. "I know you're all itching for a bigger fight. But this one isn't like the last three assignments. You'll know more at the briefing." Then the officer left.

Echo and I exchanged a look. Echo shrugged.

The target turned out to be a Separatist listening post with a large underground structure returned by multiple long-range sensor scans. The structure's exact dimensions were unknown, only that it continued to expand further than what was detected. In the evergreen night time spy pictures, the post was little more than a bunker, some repeater nests, and a satellite dish.

"The boys recovered a commander droid's head," the officer said, "which gave away the locations of a lot of forward positions around the nearest base, as well as important patrol data. But this one is restricted. It's thirty kilometers from the nearest base. The droid only had access to its location and standing orders to ignore it."

"Orders from who?" I asked.

"Unknown," the officer said. "My guess is Kleeve, but the secretive nature could imply higher. It could come straight from the top."

"So you want us to recce it?" I asked.

"Not exactly," the officer said. "I want you to hit it. Take it, clean house, and copy as much data as you can. We want to know what's inside. I want you to be surgical and thorough. Leave data storage intact; disable any miscellaneous equipment. Scrap every clanker in the site."

I saw everyone in my team lean forward, hit by a second wind of interest—everyone except Wrecker, of course. Echo was prepared to put a stop to any secretive Separatist operations after what they did to him on Skako Minor. Tech was ever-curious. Crosshair, without so much as a twitch, jumped with his eyes in his seat at the word "surgical," an opportunity to hone his skills of precision.

Although he didn't yet see it, I had planned to put Wrecker on the front. He could either barrel through the droids or run interference. Sometimes he had a way of doing both.

"It is extremely likely that this base is not a listening post at all," the officer said. "So we need that data. We need to know what they're doing there, and we need to put a stop to it."

I studied the information on the screens and committed them to memory quickly. Our scans revealed some basic schematics of the first two sublevels. They were more like magnetic imprints: even as they were, they were incomplete. While the team was interested in a mission that wasn't just another reconnaissance cakewalk, while the regs took all the glory on the battlefield, I stirred. We were going into close quarters blind, unaware of the enemy's disposition or density aside from a handful of B1s on the surface.

With the suspicions already high because of the hardened officer's intuition, I prepared for the worst: B2s, BXs, and destroyers. I tailored our loadouts favoring maximum "surgical" violence, although droid poppers would be an issue for such sensitive data retrieval. I sacrificed a light load.

We took a light speeder that traded armor and weaponry for carry capacity, maneuverability, and sound discipline. Its notable features were a powerful repulsorlift engine—strong enough for the team, the gear, and Wrecker—some overengineered mufflers, and a roll cage.

Through the lush green forestry, our speeder hummed quietly until we were six kilometers behind the enemy line. We left the speeder where the brush was too dense and squeezed through, creeping in between thick bushes that would bog down an advance. Here, there were no trails or roads in the forests, avenues that would be too difficult to support a large-scale assault. Here, the droid coverage was thin, with only a few observation posts and droid patrols equipped with high-gain radios. It took several hours to reach our target, dropping low every few feet and waiting, listening, using the birdsongs as cover and as warnings of activity. If ever the avians stopped chirping to one another, then nearby was likely a squad of clankers, noisy and disruptive.

Then, before we knew it, we were through most of the brush, the bushes no longer squeezing and raking our armor—and shortly behind the frontline. Occasional bursts of cannon fire, a dozen kilometers away, rang out—so gently, however, the avians didn't even take notice. My hourly checks with Command were eventually met with static and an interfering slush of signals. We were on our own.

I crawled in the brush to a point where I could just barely see through the leaves and trees to see the droids manning a turret at the base of the satellite tower. The tower was a thin needle with a dish at the top, surfacing just above the canopy. The structure was painted with green and black accents to camouflage it from above. From far enough away, its silhouette would melt into the trees and lose itself in a sea of dark, thick evergreens. It even had small stilts angled outward that would catch snowfall and appear like short tree branches.

"Got it," I murmured.

I turned to Crosshair. "Plan 32," I whispered.

He nodded and slowly crept up a tree thirty meters back, meticulously climbing until he was about twelve meters high. It took him several minutes, careful to not disturb a branch or sway the tree any which way. Then he set up an anti-reflection mesh on his scope and, clinging to the branch, cradled the weapon in his arm, brought down the boom on his helmet, and scoped in.

The birdsongs continued.

I looked up, watching Crosshair. He turned and propped his weapon up against his leg to signal with his right hand.

Seven B1s. Two gunners. The rest had laser rifles, nothing more.

I signed him to shoot the gunner on my signal. I gave Tech and Echo hand signals, moving them around the base's periphery. It was almost time to attack—the longer we waited, the more time we spent setting up, the sooner we might be spotted first as we slowly crept around.

Wrecker turned to me, about to speak up. I shushed him and leaned close.

"When they open fire," I whispered, my voice so quiet a bargefly wouldn't hear, "you go straight down the middle. I'll be right behind you."

Wrecker nodded. He squirmed, adjusting his prone stance with a Bulwark shield on his back.

I signed to Crosshair, On your go.

He sighted in with his weapon. Then I saw him hesitate, recoiling back a millimeter, a quiet, quick gasp staying his hand. I felt a vibration in the ground. More than just the droids. Quick footfalls sprang out of leaves and brush beyond what I could see. I could almost smell the brass and milled steel. We weren't alone.

Weapons fire broke out from the other side of the clearing. Suppressed gunshots snapped like tree branches, echoing lightly in the woods. Slugs dinged against the droids, dropping four quickly. The other three turned, abandoning the repeater facing us, until they were cut down from the bushes.

I hesitated. Wrecker and Echo glared at me, unsure of what to do next.

I held still, making sure they waited, too.

Green, heavily armored soldiers melted out of the shadows and trees. Five of them crept up to the complex: Spartans. We encountered them during our mission on Mygeeto months ago. I wondered if they were the same men. This had confirmed my suspicions about them, given the Helljumpers and Marines had no idea who they were by description alone. The Spartans were highly secretive special forces, most likely on separate tactical uplinks from the main force.

One of them in an armor permutation thicker than the rest of them, toting a large medium machine gun, ambled over to the edge of the clearing. His visor faced directly toward us.

"Thunder!" he called, his gruff, raspy voice just reaching us.

"Bolt!" I called back. I stood up, holding a hand up to wave. The rest of my squad followed, slowly. We were somewhat confused and alarmed, surprised to see they knew we were there.

I heard rustling behind me and turned, my weapon ready. Two more Spartans were faced me, their weapons at low-ready. The lead aimed a fishlike slugthrower, some modification of the MA5B, slightly downward, away from me, his off-hand open, palm facing toward me.

I lowered my weapon. "You're a quiet bunch, aren't you?"

"No more than you," the Spartan responded. I noticed the Arabic numerals on his armor, the only identifying print: 092. We shook hands.

In the clearing, Wrecker was staring up the big guy with the gun. They faced each other off close, as if one could play a staring contest behind two opaque helmet visors. Wrecker walked past Spartan 052, punching at his shoulder. 052 caught Wrecker's fist with his off-hand, deflecting it away.

Wrecker halted, turning directly to him, and stared him down again.

117 and I moved to intervene, get between them. Wrecker had a way with irritating regs in joint missions. But these were allied forces, even more detached from us. Trust was short here. Before I could say, We're all on the same side, Wrecker huffed approvingly. "I like him," he said.

"Jorge?" 117 barked.

Jorge turned to 117, then to Wrecker, and nodded. "Good here, Chief."

Assuming that he referred to the naval rank master chief petty officer, I took on faith that 117 was their team leader. I walked up to him. "Afternoon," I said. "The name's Hunter."

117 just stared at me, betraying no emotion or expression. His XO, 104, came up from the other side of the camp.

"We remember you," 104 said. He took his helmet off, and I recognized him immediately. "I'm Fred," he said. "Clearing the structure behind me are Kelly and Linda. That's Blue Team. Behind you are Red Team: Jerome, Alice, and Douglas. You shook hands with Jerome."

"What's your objective here?" I asked.

Fred and 117 exchanged quick looks. "Asset denial," Fred said. "We're clearing it out and bagging intel."

"Same as us," I said. "If it's as important as we think it is, Separatist reinforcements won't be long. We should team up, bolster our strengths."

117 stared at me for a tense few seconds. Given our history, I expected some resistance. I expected mistrust. But he nodded.

"Agreed," 117 said.

His word was law among the Spartans. They immediately went along. We shared our short-range comlinks and IFF data. Their names appeared over their heads on my helmet display.

Kelly and Linda returned. "Intel is good," Kelly said. "There's a trap door in the main structure. Tunnels below."

"I'll leave Crosshair up top," I said, gesturing to my marksman. "Echo and Tech can handle data extraction."

"Not bad," Fred said. "Take the big guy with the shield down with us. He can take point. Red Team and Linda will pull rear security with Jorge. But if it gets too hot, send the big guy back up to support."

"He'll appreciate that," I said. We divvied out our orders and prepped to enter the tunnel. Linda and Crosshair took their positions, climbing into the trees at different angles to spot patrols and reinforcements. Red Team laid wire traps and mines in the brush, leaving the enemy only one route to funnel their droids through, covered by Jerome and Douglas, each commandeering the blaster repeaters; and Jorge with the big gun, Alice covering him.

The tunnels were dark and narrow. A staircase that only fit us single-file descended a flight into wet, rocky holds. Wrecker took point, plating his shield forward, blaster clinging to the side with a ray from his weapon light illuminating the cramped hall. I was behind him. 117, Fred, and Kelly were behind me, and Tech took the rear behind Echo.

The first hall was empty. No alarms tripped, so far as we could tell. No droids.

We went down the next staircase.

I read the message in my inbox after a long shift. I am tired. One of my last friends at the nursing home walks out. I angle my chatter away from Layla. I angle it away from Michael. I angle it away from the dog. I close my chatter and think about the redhead I've been talking to at work instead.

Jeanine propositions me the next day, and we find the time on a Thursday night. We bond over how miserable the industry is. We bond over everything. We like cinnamon whiskey. We like cherry pie. We hate nursing homes. She is ashamed of her position as a poorly paid nurse. I am proud of my progress healing from the war, but I do not talk about the war.

The war is a hurricane.

But at home, I am not at peace. I am not still. I am always tired. I am always fearful, always watching over my shoulder—Jeanine was there once, for a brief time, watching it for me. It allowed me to relax. Now it is just Layla, Michael, and the dog. But it isn't enough.

Jeanine flirts with the waiter. That's OK. She flirts with everyone, but she chose me. I don't see the hurt in it.

Jeanine asks the waiter what he wants to do with his life. He gives a non-committal answer. He is seventeen, ages away from me, but not far off from her; even though she and I are the same age.

She smiles brightly at him, in a tantalizing, innocent way, and says he should consider becoming a nurse at a nursing home. She tells him the license only takes a few years, and he can get it at any old community college if he doesn't have experience. She gives him a sticky note with a website for more information.

But you don't like this industry, I say. But it's a meat grinder.

We need the bodies, she says.

I pick up her bill and go home. She asks to come with.

I find the boy outside on a smoke break. I give him my warning. I tell him my story.

I read about you in the news, he says. I am accustomed to hearing this. I'm sorry—

Then you know what I am asking you to never do.

Layla tells me I made the right choice later that night.

What does your intuition say? Layla asks.

I stare, unsure if I want to let it out. I take a deep breath of fresh air, beautiful air, living air. My lungs are still there. My body is still there. The hole burned nearly through my chest is not; I am still here. But I am here because he is not.

You can say it, Layla says. I know what you're thinking.

I fold my hands in my lap, and I see his eyes.

She's like a Navy recruiter.

Layla cuts right to the bone. And do you want to date a Navy recruiter? Marry one?

I shake my head. Absolutely not.

My sister nods. She didn't think so.

I do not know who Jackson Smith is, but I know what he is asking me to do.

I look to Michael as he smiles, and I cannot bear it. I see him again. I cannot hide it. I must invoke his name; I see Montag.

The next day, Layla asks me if I'm going back. I have not even mentioned the message in my inbox. I have not even mentioned the war, or therapy, or Montag. The first wisps of snowfall on Jericho, marking the end of the harvest season.

Do you think I'm running? I ask.

No, she says. It's different this time.

It is, I say. Should I stay?

That's not a question I can answer, Ilya. I'm sorry.

Don't be, I say. I'm not. I have to do this. I have to do it for him.

Montag?

Yes, I say.

Or you? Layla asks.

Yes, I say as well. It's… the job's not done.

She looks me over, thinking something terrible. She thinks something sad. She grabs me and squeezes me tight. I feel tight in my chest, some kind of fear that this is the last time we will see each other. It scares me, and I shudder momentarily, and I hold her tighter.

You're going there to face something? she asks.

I nod, brushing my nose against her blazer.

You have everything you need.

The second sublevel was clear of hostiles. We checked every room—an ops center, an empty billet, some offices and communications rooms, and a seismic chart. At the end of the main hall was a heavy blast door. We stacked up on it, preparing for anything. The Spartans reported that they couldn't use backscatters to detect anything behind it. The schematics of the base were unavailable, either—Tech or Echo would have to restore power to the upper levels, which would most certainly trip alarms, even though the facility appeared abandoned.

We stacked on the door and had Tech work to open it with his data kit. When it slid open, Wrecker went front first onto the catwalk. Lights shone into the darkness, occasionally flashing downward. They did not catch the bottom. We could only see the ceiling, hard jagged rock edges.

"What is this place?" Echo asked.

"It appears to be a very large-scale excavation," Tech said. "There must be another entrance."

Wrecker spoke with a shaky voice, his shield and blaster drooping as he looked around. "How far does that go… down?"

"Shield," 117 said.

I held Wrecker's shoulder. Wrecker nodded, pulling his shield back up to cover us. "You'll be all right," I said.

"And keep it down," Fred said. "We don't know where they are, or how many."

At the end of the catwalk, creaky and unstable as it was, we found what looked to be a large service elevator. It could hold all of us—if it had power. There was also a ladder that descended quite far.

117 walked to the lift and pulled out a small, bulbous device that fit in his palm.

"What's that?" I asked.

"IR strobe," he said. He dropped the strobe down the shaft. The sound from its impact at the bottom echoes throughout.

"You have infrared?" Fred asked.

I nodded, pulling out an infrared scope from my kit bag. I glared down toward the bottom. Without enough light in the chamber, I couldn't see much in the dark—not even the contours of the cavern walls or any structures at the bottom, except what was illuminated by a blinking light at the bottom of the shaft.

"That's it?" I asked.

Fred nodded. "That's about… 150 meters."

Wrecker appeared visibly distressed. "Uh, you go first," he said to me.

"Something wrong?" Chief asked.

"He's afraid of heights," I said.

117 and Fred shared a concerned look. Fred shrugged and signed something with two fingers at the chin of his helmet.

"I'll take point," I said and started climbing down the ladder.

In the silence, it took several minutes to reach the bottom. I felt solid ground under my booths again and let go, raising my weapon. Wrecker came second, happy to deploy his shield again and cover the other direction. The rest fanned out until we had roughly ninety degrees of coverage, from wall to wall in the corner, and Echo reached the bottom last in the file.

Our boots pattered against the ferrocrete foundation until we reached the bedrock at the foot of the canyon. We continued, rounding the corner of the rock wall supporting the service lift. There was more light—a series of halogens illuminating a series of tents, excavators, equipment, and trolleys of supplies. We fanned out into a sweeping line formation, switched off our lights, and crept up to the tents.

Then we saw the droids. It was a large squadron of B2s and BX commando units. They were hauling equipment off and on the main ramp in front of the tents, toward a large metallic structure that lined the far wall. It wasn't like anything I had seen, nor the architecture of Kaller. It was something wildly different. Smooth, gray, and marked with blue luminescent glyphs.

Wrecker accidentally clicked the shield to the floor, creating a sound that carried in the boxy acoustics of the cavern. One of the commando droid sentries turned, looking directly to us. It then looked away, as though it had not noticed anything.

Kelly opened fire with a suppressed carbine, gunning it down in its place. The other droids turned, watching us directly for a second, and the scrapped commando droid, and then turned around, casually walking away on its patrol—as though it had seen nothing.

I cocked my head. "What?" I murmured. We approached closer, watching the droids continue to ignore us, even in plain view. They continued their tasks, patrols, and watch duties, but said nothing to us and didn't so much as question our presence. We destroyed them anyway.

Wrecker got to work dismantling the excavators with his bare hands, bending their joints out of shape and squeezing the laser cutter emitters.

We walked down the center of the ramp to the facility within, which appeared to have been excavated by the haulers and laser drills in the camp. The rock was carved to a primordial, immaculately smooth, metallic wall. Large, foreign, double blast doors opened to us, humming lowly. The structure inside was well-lit. The Spartans gestured to each other to switch off their infrared from how bright the interior was. Beyond the occasional B2 hauling a crate of things, it was empty in here.

The Spartans grew further on edge—more than my team. The way they were looking to each other, it seemed that they were talking on private radio channels.

I nudged Fred's shoulder. "Something I should know?" I asked.

He turned to me. Even though I couldn't see his expression, he looked guilty. It was the way he turned when I caught him on it.

"They're not here," he whispered.

"Who?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

117 turned to Fred, giving him a slicing motion. There was something more to this, more that they did not want to share.

"What aren't you telling us?" I asked, stopping.

They halted. Tech, Echo, and I grouped up, staring down the Spartans. I hovered my finger over the trigger.

I felt something past the final blast doors. Footfalls. A rapid march toward us. I pointed my weapon toward it, past the Spartans, confounding them.

The blast doors opened behind 117 and his men. They spurred, all of us facing our weapons toward it. An officer in black-clad armor with an insignia I didn't recognize, flanked by a woman in a white lab coat and twelve BX commando droids, walked toward us.

"What they aren't telling you," the officer said, "is the crux of this operation."

"Argonaut," Fred said. "You're alive?"

"What's going on?" 117 asked.

"Why are the droids ignoring us?" I asked.

The man Fred called Argonaut stepped forward. "I reprogrammed them," he said.

"You can do that?" I asked.

He produced a scomp adapter. "Using this, yes," he said. "It was developed by ONI Section 3 using data recovered from my predecessor on Mygeeto. All I needed to do was lure a B1 out, remove its restraining bolt, and manually upload an invasive program similar to the Achadh Zero protocol. It basically replaced the droid's OS and made it answer to me. I told them to ignore Allied activity."

"I have a hard time believing you manually reprogrammed commando droids," Echo said.

"I didn't," Argonaut said. "My B1 did. He did so during routine maintenance. All we did was bivouac outside the entrance. Within a few days, Professor Anders and I had control of the entire facility—and we even sent falsified reports to the Separatist controllers."

"Sounds like you have it locked down," I said.

Fred stepped forward. "You aren't Creagh, then," he deduced.

"Correct," Argonaut said. He walked up to the Spartans, pulling his helmet off.

They stared at him for a second—it wasn't an empty silence. It was a knowing one.

"Grim?" Fred asked.

He nodded. "Been a while, hasn't it?" he said. He held out a fist, thumping it with Fred's. "It's good to see Blue Team again."

117 walked up and nodded. "You went dark thirty-six hours ago," he said. "What happened?"

Argonaut shook his head. "Had to turn on the jammer. We accidentally activated a signal that beamed superluminally to Côte d'Azur. We don't know how to shut it off. But—"

The facility quaked from an explosion topside, disturbing the dust.

Wrecker flexed his muscles, clacking his blaster against his shield. "Oh, yeah!" he called, doubling back for the surface.

"We've been made?" Echo asked.

Argonaut nodded. "The Separatists must have figured us out after I turned on the jammer. Can't exactly make daily updates in a dead zone.

"What I need now is time," Argonaut said. "Anders has been working on extracting a relic from this… starship. She's translated most of the language here, little genius she is, and she's ready to extract. Buy us the time, and we can get the hell out of here. I'll call an extraction at the surface."

"There's no room," I said. "The place we came in?"

"No," Argonaut said. "We'll have to source another way out. There are six other entrances. We'll meet up with Red Team and bring them back downstairs. Then we'll head to the new coordinates together."

He opened a command module on his gauntlet, typing.

I sent Echo to scomp into Separatist computers and pull whatever data he could. Tech offered to help Professor Anders, who gladly took him, although skeptical. He quickly read her notes, bringing himself up to speed within minutes. It impressed her handsomely—in a way that often was overlooked by laypeople. She seemed to know a curious and sharp mind whenever she saw it.

"How much time do you need?" 117 asked.

Argonaut looked up at him. "This is the mission," he said.

The chief nodded and went topside.

I pulled Fred aside, speaking softly.

"What's his deal?"

"Grim?" Fred asked. "He's a hard Marine. He fought pretty hard against clone commandos, even with a bad leg and dragging a fallen comrade. But I guess Naval Intelligence brought him back into the fold. He's replaced another field agent I used to know. Doesn't surprise me—he knew of the Spartans, and he has similar survivalist skills."

"No reservations working with clones now?" I asked.

"He's a Ferret now," Fred said. "He's as professional as they get."

Just hearing it wasn't very reassuring.

I watched his conversations with Anders. They were fairly idle; while Argonaut focused on his gauntlet readout, Anders fiddled with an alien console that responded poorly to her inputs. She had a clipboard and a data pad on her portable desk, referencing various things and scratching off with an ink-pen her mistakes.

"I was right," Anders said. "This is the same class of starship encased in the Babd Catha ice shelf. Its specifications are almost exactly the same, based on my translations of these glyphs.

"And the relic we're looking for… it's using the same syntax as the museum artifact back at…"

The good professor noticed Argonaut's silence. He watched her quietly, listening to her musings—or, perhaps, he wasn't listening. He was still, somewhat distracted, perhaps his mind drifting elsewhere. But he was watching her, not her work, or her notes. Despite his talkative nature so far and unexpected bravado, there was an air of nervous concern.

"Worried about my progress?" Anders asked.

Argonaut crossed his arms, breaking out of his trance. "I'm more concerned with the prior mistakes. Are you sure you only need a few hours?"

"I'm not leaving without that relic," Anders said.

Argonaut huffed through a wry grin. "Not exactly what I wanted to hear," he said.

"Nothing ventured…" she said.

"Nothing gained," Argonaut said.

I paced over, an eavesdropper caught in his attention.

He looked up. Anders kept working, blissfully aloof. "Something on your mind, Hunter?"

"I heard a little about your history," I said.

"Prying into the personal?" Argonaut asked.

"Just wondering if you're really on our side. No offense."

Argonaut shook his head. "Mygeeto was nasty. I saw the worst of the clones. They wiped out my brigade almost to a man. I escaped narrowly, but I lost my best friend there. Then I was discharged from the Navy for my injuries."

"And you came back?" I asked. "Only a few months later?"

"A lot can change in a few months," he said. "For one, we're fighting together. And you stand side-by-side with the same group of Spartans you fought. Do you think the Master Chief forgets how your men killed his brother in arms—raised from childhood to fight, who trained with him, ate with him, racked with him, fought with him? And how many of your brothers have the Spartans killed?"

I shook my head, as if shaking out the doubt. "It's…" I said, realizing I was now no longer answering just Argonaut. "War is not a place to hold grudges."

"Precisely," Argonaut said. "They don't pursue revenge, nor do I. I'm not here expressly to fight the Separatists, nor to hurt clones. I'm here to fulfill a vow."

"A vow?" I asked, cocking my head. This was not how I expected the conversation to go.

"My best friend died on Mygeeto. His father died on Sanghelios. Mygeeto remains contested in a tug-of-war between the Republic and CIS. Sanghelios is firmly under Separatist control. I originally planned to go to those places when the war was over, to bring their bodies home."

I nodded. "Sensible," I said.

"But…" he said, looking off, his eyes dim like under a lampshade, "I just couldn't forgive myself. I worked in a hospital to help other people—like I was working off a debt of gratitude, for the life Montag Lalonde gave me.

"But I realized, if I waited for more of my brothers to die, recruited senselessly to the slaughter in my place, then…"

I noticed Anders had stopped working. She didn't so much as take her pen off the board, but she was frozen in place. Tech kept working, glancing at her a few times, a few seconds at a time, perplexed with her only for long enough to dismiss it and will himself back to the task.

"Then I don't deserve to be the one to collect their bodies after the war," he said, quietly. "That's why I'm here, Hunter. It's not about you."

I leaned back, blinking my focus back, as his words streamed down the chamber like embers. In the corner of my eye, I noticed Anders pick up the slack. I heard Tech whisper things, Try this methodology, or What about this data point?

"What about this mission?" I asked.

He shook his head. "That's classified," he said, smiling to himself—as though remembering a nostalgic joke. I didn't need to ask what was so funny.

"But I'll tell you this much. Securing this data is critical to the survival of the human race."

"Not the war?" I asked.

He looked away, admiring the architecture of the chamber. Avoiding my eyes.

"There are some things bigger than the war," he finally said. "Bigger than all of us."

I thought it obvious that he was right—but for the life of me, I couldn't envision it. The war was all we clones knew. The end might as well have been the end for us, too. Sometimes I dreaded it. I yearned for the end of the suffering we knew it caused, but the uncertainty instilled a paralyzing terror, one I never showed. I yearned for a total victory over the Separatists, no matter how far away it seemed; but I dreaded the cost.

To see a young man like him, who had been to war, who had seen its depravity and depths and its losses, and still yearned for tomorrow— hoped, so truthfully and desperately, for tomorrow—that surprised me.

"Wait," Anders said, "that's it! We've got it!" She nearly leaped up from her work. Tech barely looked up, double-checking her notes and running a model on his data pad.

She ran up to the alien console and punched in a new combination. It rolled like an analog lock, unlocking and glowing bright blue.

We put our helmets back on, raising our weapons. Argonaut shouldered his submachine gun. The device produced a small, metal fragment inscribed with strange glyphs. Anders walked to it, reaching for it.

"Wait!" Argonaut called. He grabbed Anders' shoulder, holding her back.

The facility shook again. I could sense footfalls high above us. Hurried gaits from Spartans, Echo, Wrecker, and Tech as they no doubt retreated under the surface.

I turned to Argonaut. "We're out of time."

Argonaut hesitated, giving me a double-take, and then let her go. She grabbed it. It glowed, causing her to momentarily panic. The inscriptions glowed a bright, vibrant blue through her fingers until it pulsed outward, harmlessly projecting a massive hologram. It displayed three bodies: a counterpart, almost like a mirror that connected to the device; a lush green and blue planet orbiting two stars; and a ringworld.

Argonaut and Anders exchanged a fistbump.

"Is that… Glavis?" I asked.

"No," Argonaut said, "that's… Sigma Octanus."

"No," Anders said, "that's the artifact from the Côte d'Azur Museum of Natural History."

"On Sigma Octanus Four," Argonaut said, punching her shoulder.

"Oh," Anders said, offering an embarrassed smile. "Right."

Tech interjected. "You are all looking at different objects of interest," he said.

I stared at them incredulously. Then the cavern shook. Explosions rumbled the upper levels. "Time to go!" I called.

Argonaut looked up, watching his comrades' tags descend the way we came in the first time.

"OK," he said. "We're taking the other way up. Pack what you can."

We heard, far above and through the open blast doors, a telltale sign—the slow march of droids crossing over the catwalks far above the digsite.

"I do not think we have the time to pack anything," Tech said, "judging by the growing proximity of enemy droids."

"If we lose this research…" Anders said.

"Leave it," Argonaut said. "You have everything you need right here," he said, tapping Anders' temple. "And we have our next clue. That's enough."

She hesitated, giving him a trusting look, and nodded.

Both teams united, we retreated out to the Separatist camp. Argonaut ordered the droids to defend us. They scurried toward the lift, firing up at the B2 droids descending via jetpack. Red bolts illuminated the cavern as they shot up, glowing the walls red.

"Which way, boss?" Jorge asked. I noticed his armor—scorched in some areas, the olive-green paint stained with black soot. Wrecker stood by him, pulling a repeater cell off his backpack and inserting it to the weapon. It was ripped off its tripod, having been hauled around—as though mimicking Jorge's setup.

"Go left," Argonaut said, watching his display. "It's likely that the enemy is trying to seal our way out of the vehicle bay. We'll go through them."

"I like your style," I said. We crossed left, taking one of the wider bores up. Any direction moving up would inevitably take us to the surface, which was more relieving than knowing that Argonaut himself knew the way out.

Crosshair lined the tunnel with reflector disks behind us as we climbed.

The vehicle bay was lined with Separatist tanks, but only one was fueled. I suggested to Argonaut that we commandeer one.

"I like your style," Argonaut said back to me, his words shaped by a wry grin. I gave the task to Echo and Tech. Wrecker climbed on the side, setting up his repeater. Jorge took rear guard as the droids followed up the narrow tunnel.

Red Team took point while Linda rode along the other side of the Separatist tank as it lifted off the housing, drifting toward the exit.

"Exit isn't far!" Argonaut called. He thrust his sidearm into Anders' hands. She fumbled with it before orienting herself. He let his rifle hang on a sling and produced a bright orange flare gun.

Jorge waited, his machine gun poised toward the rear, as the droids closed. The first marched through the bend, and he opened fire. Heavy rounds cut down B2s and commando droids that scrambled through. Crosshair stopped him as the droids climbed over a small heap of scrap. He aimed his rifle, leveling it on his elbow, and fired a single bolt down to the reflector disks. The bolt zipped down the hall, knocking out who-knows how many droids, red-hot rings glowing in their chassis as they collapsed.

It bought us some time.

"Get going! Go!" I called to Jorge and Crosshair. They retreated.

"Not bad," Linda said, passing Crosshair.

At the mouth of the tunnel was another Separatist tank, halting our advance. Droids waited behind it, flowing out, shadows and rays of light creeping into the way as they opened fire.

Our tank blasted the Separatist tank's turret, disabling it. Then it took out the main chassis, turning it into a burning hulk. Secondary explosions rocked the tunnel, taking out other droids, and threatening the integrity of the tunnel. Dirt and rock crumbled from the ceiling.

Argonaut tackled me as a pile of rocks crumbled behind us, crashing down where we were standing. Springing back to my feet, I helped him up. He thumped his fist against my shoulder plate. I reciprocated, the tunnel shaking itself to pieces.

"Go!" I called. "Leave the tank!"

Spartans and clones bounded for the mouth of the cave, firing outward at the bleeding light at the end of the tunnel. Argonaut pulled Anders by her off hand, running shortly behind me. Jorge was last, hauling his weapon and thumping the ground with his boots.

The tunnel caved in behind us, sealing us out—and the droids within. It was still bright outside. This planet torn between two stars having aggressive seasons, I saw the first snows glide between us and melt slick on the rocks. Red Team, Blue Team, and the Bad Batch carved a perimeter with gunfire and grenades. The droids, however, seemed to continue. It was a horde of metal, thrashing through one another and crawling up to us with overwhelming fire.

The first thing Argonaut did was climb out and point his flare gun into the sky, firing a ruby-red illuminator high above the trees. This kicked the UNSC into high-gear, a signal with a predefined meaning, much like my own squad's system of plan phrases.

"Extraction is still a few minutes away," Argonaut said. "But we should be getting fire support. They'll move Savannah and Gettysburg into position."

"Plan 77!" I barked at my squadmates. "Protect the professor and agent. They're the squishiest."

I fired back through the hordes as commando droids broke the ranks of B1s and B2s, jumping straight for Argonaut. They were out for blood.

Jorge and Wrecker got between them, dismantling them with their bare hands as Jorge's machine gun ran dry and Wrecker's repeater overheated, the barrel glowing red and dripping molten durasteel. Jerome thundered an eight-gauge shotgun into the B2s while Crosshair and Linda rapid-fired his sniper and her anti-materiel slugthrower, ripping through destroyer droid shields.

117, Fred, Kelly, and Argonaut stayed close, alternating fire with Kelly's rotary grenade launcher, the chief's MA5B, Fred's M7 and a commandeered droid blaster rifle, and Argonaut's droid poppers. Unafraid, Anders clung to her weapon, but she only poked out to take potshots at the droids.

Tech and Echo manned a rocket launcher they took from a storage rack in the Separatist tank, using it against incoming enemy armor—sparingly so, prioritizing only the tanks. I fired at B1s piloting speeders through the roads toward the outpost maw.

A thick fog of smoke quickly grew from the ordnance, sublime plasma glows, and burnt cordite. Argonaut threw orange smoke grenades outward to the enemy, taking care to throw them as far away from us as possible. He glanced up expectantly.

"Get down!" he called over the channel.

We dove as the enemy fire intensified, effectively pinning us right where we were, under building debris, dirt, and wrecked vehicles. The surface ignited from rocket pod blasts, ATGMs, and 30mm autocannon fire. A pair of Hornets ripped by at low altitude, passing and dumping flares.

Then they came for another pass, battering the surface and plowing through droids and trees alike. Railgun fire smashed the ground, kicking dirt sky-high and raining it down upon us. I looked up as a pair of UNSC frigates raced over the treeline, halting over our position. Their deceleration was so aggressive it blew snow out of the trees and ground, producing a massive screen of bright white fog that lingered in the air. Winds exceeding fifty kilometers per hour whipped by, rustling me with a bone-chilling cold we didn't feel this morning. Far above, however, I saw more—a whole fleet in high altitude, swarming the Separatist forces with overwhelming numbers of fighters, dropships, and drop pods. A flagship just like the one that stormed Anaxes hovered above, focusing its cannons on a single position.

When we got up, less than half the Separatist assault force remained. They continued, however, firing their blasters at full cyclic. The droid commander that sicked them on us was ruthless; and even overwhelmed, the droids had no sense to leave the site. UNSC munitions mixed with a stirring blizzard. White fog fowled the droid assault while missiles and guided bomb units rained down upon them.

The Hornets loitered unyielding, bouncing and strafing around small arms fire, as they escorted a Pelican toward us. The ramp opened, the door gunner spraying a stream of high-caliber tracers into the marching horde, rocket pods spraying out in the opposite direction, chin-mounted autocannon blasting in every which way; it was a battle suited for us, however unrelenting, however inexhaustible.

Argonaut had Anders board first, then the Bad Batch, then the Spartans, then himself. Shots glanced near him, blowing sparks off his armor plating and scorching it—even with grazing touches. He didn't so much as flinch while taking this incoming fire when I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the blood tray. Taking constant blaster fire, the Pelican's aft thrusters started to glow from the heat—but she held, even as alarms blared and hydraulics burst inside. She held.

As the door gunner signaled the crew chief, and the crew chief knocked on the cockpit door, Wrecker and Jorge grasped each other's hands and thumped their helmets together as we lifted off above the canopy, roaring back toward the UNSC lines—only four kilometers, the opposite direction from the Republic line and mounting an effective pincer—and were overtaken by a flight of Sparrowhawks, Hornets, and Blackswords covering our retreat, while a massive Helljumper push began toward the site. Hundreds of dark, single-occupant orbital pods crashed into the forest beneath us—another blitz timed perfectly with our extraction.

The new age is coming.

Our brothers stonewall us, while we try to figure out what has changed, just two days after Operation Switchback. A row of men in white armor and green accents hold back a furious cadre of Helljumper officers, Marines, and Ferrets. They tell them the same things stiffly and aggressively, as though automated; as though they are droids. They are nothing like I remember them. Wind blows snow and sleet toward us in a disorienting hail, pelting my shaded helmet. They tell us to step aside. They give us noncommittal answers and poor explanations. They are lying, and they do not even know it.

I stand here as we lose the planet not to the blizzard, and not to the droids, but to our allies. I stand in the mounds of smoke and snow and death as the gunfire stops, the lightsaber burns out, and the frontline grinds to a halt. I stand on the ship, sharing a drink with Ellen. And another. And another, until we can't stand anymore, and we smell each other's breaths over the sterile, recycled air and distilled titanium.

I have reached the end of the war; but by disaster, my fight isn't over. My mission is not over. Montag must wait. Théo must wait for me, a little longer.

I try to call home, but our comms are jammed. A single order is being repeated on all Allied frequencies, so harshly that the UNSC naval commanders shut off their comms until they can make sense of it. We still don't know what happened.

I receive Coal Miner's slipspace COM beacon by the evening with an hourly update, one that was a weekly update three hours ago: The American Consulate has fallen. An emergency remote briefing with Osman, Gray Man, and CINCONI will occur in one hour. Be there.

I order the captain to take us out of Kaller, out of the dry washes of interference, and take the conference in deep space. I stare into the swirling glows, as the Vanishing Point is swallowed whole by slipspace, myself unable to look back at the fleet I am abandoning.

Layla is waiting for me at the airport in a lake of powder-white snow covering the tarmac. I feel her wool coat against mine. She asks if I have completed it. I lie to her again. I restart the cycle of lies. I tell her, there's just one more thing. I tell her I don't know how long I will be gone again, a half-truth. I only know it will be too long, but I cannot bring myself to say it. I regret leaving her. I regret leaving my progress. I regret leaving Michael and the dog. But I cannot live like this. I cannot live without fulfilling my burden, my vow.

I feel the grandfather clock chime. My feet yearn for the hollow vibrations that are no longer there; the floor is so cold. It's so quiet. It's so distant. Michael tells me it is no different, and I believe him. But I know better. The dog stares at me vacantly, and I wonder where he has been. I wonder where Montag has been. The lease on my promise has been forestalled; for this, there will be a debt.

They won't tell us why.

They won't answer for their crimes.

They won't give us back Sanghelios. Nor Mygeeto. From now on, they will only take.